THE curiosity of the public has been now, for above a century, so much wrought upon by the mystery which has enveloped the name of the Iron Mask, (or, as the French more properly designate him, "the Man of the Iron Mask,"*) that the eagerness for discovery has thus been carried much farther than the real importance of the subject deserved. Numerous have been the papers written, and the conjectures hazarded in favour of different theories; almost all presenting, at first "L'homme au masque de fer."